The Indian Odyssey of Michael and Nix

So, today was another lesson in patience. We spent a full day of travel via bus (including the usual obligatory delays for goats, rickshaws, trains and so on ;)) and walking to reach the neighbouring town of Sanawad and an internet cafe. We had more luck getting online here, but I discovered I’ve been locked out of my Facebook account for using an unfamiliar computer, and there ain’t any way for me to get back into it without some confirmation code or other that is being sent to my cellphone in South Africa. Fat lot of good that is in India! So my online experience lasted all of 5 minutes. Thusly, it looks like there will be no updates from me via my Indidginus page for some time.... Nice one Zukkerberg. It’s crazy that we are so paranoid about security these days over the most trivial things – I can’t get a SIM card in India in case I’m a Pakistani terrorist, and I can’t get on to Facebook because I seemingly hacked my own account from an Indian cybercafé. Ha ;) It’s all pushing me in the direction of letting go again.... So bring it on. We are living in increasingly unhelpful ways I think, and I’m keen to take a backseat on much of it. Or avoid it altogether if possible. On the plus side, we ate some kick ass samosas (which hopefully won’t kick our asses later) and managed to book our train tickets to Mumbai on the 28th November with the help of the very nice geezer who ran the second internet cafe we went to (they had more than one in the town!). We even got some free chai thrown in. And his good vibe definitely lifted my day. Note to self – be more like him.... It’s much better. 2nd class AC booking this time – no more unreserved general class for us (unless we *really* have to)..... The last journey was an endurance test of epic proportions – my hips and knees still haven’t recovered! We also bought some ayurvedic medicine to help on the sleep front. Looking forward to trying some of that tonight – it tastes really good, which is a plus. Had a wicked bath in the Narmada earlier this evening as the sun set the sky pon fire - definitely lifts the spirits. Doing hand washing in a bucket at dawn (as I did this morning, bizarrely enough) also lifts the spirits – Omkareshwar was so quiet, and the colours were amazing as the sun rose over the river and forest. The bird life was kicking off too. I saw the most amazing parrots, minah birds and other feathered friends of unknown genealogy flitting about the place, which beats a run-of-the-mill washing machine experience hands down. And to end my day, I got some good feedback on my Hindi tonight at dinner with Mangla and Mamaji, although I still sound as though I am saying “coriander” when I mean to say thank you ;) Apparently I also look a lot happier now than when I first arrived.... Hum myahan bahot kush he.